the high speed computer trades. >> is there any downside to a tax? >> yeah, if you're a hedge fund manager or one of the high-speed traders, you're going to have to pay some tax and it's going to discourage you from making bets that distort the market. for the rest of us, i don't see a downside, ed. >> how would we make a determination? because you know they would come back and say oh, this is really going to hurt the economy. how would this hurt the economy? >> i don't see how discouraging speculation, which is almost all done with borrowed money. they effectively borrow money at a rate of 30 to 1. you put 3% down and borrow the rest of the money. i don't see how this hurts the economy. and if we reduce this volatility and reduce market distortion, we can get back to having a market focused on investments that create production in the future and wealth in the future, not creaming the market today through speculation. >> quickly, you think this is something congress could embrace? >> not probably in this congress in the house, but i think this

is an idea. it's been around for 80 years. we may well see come about, ed, and hopefully we. we need speculators, but we don't want them to be overwhelming the market. >> all right, david cay johnston, thank you for your time on the "ed show." that is "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. thanks for joining us tonight. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening. >> geek, rachel. your e block in particular was stellar. i want you to meet ted nugent in person so i can watch. >> yeah, me against ted. i'll straighten him out. >> go get your buddies, ted. it was amazing. >> if i may take ten seconds. >> sure. >> i am going crazy over this filibuster story. >> yeah. >> how much more evidence do the democrats have that the republicans are not honest brokers, and we need to move this obama agenda forward? i've got to do a lot more on it tomorrow night. rachel? >> i'm looking forward to it. thank you at home for joining us this hour. on a day when you probably should have taken the day off and just watched the news all

day. if you did not do that today, it's okay. this hour we will get you all caught up. but this is one of those days when i had to turn off the speakers on my computer on my desk at work because the buzzer that i have set to go off every time a top tier breaking news alert crosses the wires started to seem like it was just stuck on, it was sounding so often today. it was that kind of day. so we'll have updates for you this howerton riveting turn on capitol hill from secretary of state hillary clinton today. and remember the debt ceiling thing that everybody has been fighting about for months. that finally happened today. the stealth story that we have been covering about republicans in the states changing the rules for presidential elections to make it harder for democratic candidates to win, that story moved forward today in a big way, and is getting increasing national attention. there is a lot going on. this was a big news day. we're going to be getting to all of that. but none of those stories were the biggest, most surprising thing that happened on this big, surprising day of news. that story is our lead story tonight, and it starts here.

this is a medal of honor ceremony. the highest award our country gives for valor. president clinton here bestowing the medal of honor on vernon baker, whose medal of honor citation explains his acts of extraordinary heroism and daring leadership in an attack on a fortified gothic italian castle in world war ii. by the end of the war, that was considered to be one of the last lines of defense for the nazis. the nazis surrendered in may 1945. the acts for which vernon baker got the medal of honor took place in april of 1945. so this happened right at the end of the war. this was last stand territory, april 1945, the month before the war ended. april 1945. but it was not until 52 years after that, it was not until 1997, 52 years after he showed that heroism that vernon baker actually received his medal. over 400 medals of honor were awarded for heroism shown by

u.s. troops fighting in world war ii, but not a single one of them went at the time to a black soldier. it was not until the mid-'90s that the army commissioned a study to see if, really, no black soldiers deserved a medal of honor for that war? or to look into whether maybe the fact that they served in segregated units meant that they were just not considered for that medal, even though some of them deserved it. the army study found that there were seven african-american soldiers who were decorated for their service, but that decoration should have been the medal of honor. they only did not receive the nation's highest military honor because they were black and served in segregated units. president clinton asked congress to suspend the statute of limitations on the award, and in 1997, finally, more than 50 years late, he awarded seven medals of honor to black men for heroism in world war ii. the only one of them who was still alive to receive it was vernon baker.

serving is not the same as serving equally. there has been distinguished service by african-american soldiers in every american war all the way back to the revolutionary war on which they fought on both sides. and of course the civil war, and of course world war i, and every war we have had. when hawaii senator daniel inouye died several weeks ago, we remembered his service in world war ii as part of a segregated unit of japanese american servicemen. daniel inouye's medal of honor was also awarded more than 50 years after the war when a army review showed it was not just black units but asian units that were not properly recognized for their soldiers' heroism. we are still trying to give appropriate recognition now to the surviving tuskegee airmen, who you saw president obama paying tribute to at his inauguration this week, just as he did at his inauguration in 2009. it was not until world war ii was over in 194 that president harry truman issued an executive order to desegregate the united states armed forces by race.

nonwhite service members had been there all along. they had just never been treated equally. president truman ordered that to change. and it was not easy, and it was not even, but it was 1948. and the military having an overt policy of desegregation as of 1948 was a groundbreaking thing, not just for the military, but for our country. and in that same year of racial integration, in 1948, it's pretty much long forgotten, but in that same year in 1948, the congress also passed the women's armed services integration act. 1948. there had been of course the wac, the women's army corps and the marine corps women's reserve there had been a coast guard women's reserve group. but in 1948, the year truman said the military would be racially intergraded, women would too. they wouldn't be in a lady's auxiliary to the unit, they would just be in the military, sort of. that women's integration act in 1948 also set a limit on what

proportion of the regular u.s. military women could be. it set that limit at 2%. oh, nice, guys. 2% of the enlisted force. thanks. cheers. by 1967, they realized that was stupid, and they got rid of the 2% limit, which came in handy seven years later when the country abolished the draft and we went to an all volunteer force. so recruiting everybody, including women, frankly recruiting anybody you could get became even more of a necessity. by the 1990s, any legal prohibition on what jobs exactly women could have in the military were gone. there was no law banning women from specific jobs in the military, but there was a defense department policy that said women could not serve in units whose primary mission was to engage in direct combat on the ground. so that has been the rule. no women in combat. that's the rule. supposedly. as if. >> well, i didn't lose my legs

in a bar fight. >> that's illinois congresswoman tammy duckworth, a blackhawk pilot who lost both legs in iraq. technically she was not engaged in ground warfare because she was flying the aircraft and it was only the people shooting her down on the ground. do you really want to split hairs with her about whether or not that count as combat? in the wars and iraq and afghanistan, defining what counts as a combat role and what does not count as a combat role has been a fool's errand from the beginning. in those wars over the past decade, 61 american women have been killed in iraq in combat by hostile action. and in afghanistan, where the war is still going on, so far 23 american women have been killed in combat by hostile action. nearly a thousand american women have been wounded in action in those two wars. but, again, serving is not the same as serving equally. and our military's paper ban on women in combat has done less to keep women out of come bit than

it has done to keep women from being recognized for serving in combat. >> to make it to a general, for example, without a combat arms command at the brigade or the battalion level, and this will now allow women to have some of that command time. >> in 2009, major mary jennings hager, a combat helicopter pilot in the california air national guard, she was on a medevac mission in afghanistan when her aircraft was shot down. she was wounded on the ground. she had 15 pieces of shrapnel in her right arm and leg, but she still returned to retrieve three wounded soldiers on the ground. she returned fire in that attack once she was shot down. she was awarded the distinguished flying cross with valor for her actions that day in 2009. but she could not seek the kind of leadership positions that the military usually affords you because you have experience like that. because the defense department did not officially acknowledge her experience in combat. seriously? yeah, seriously.

contemporaneously, while all of this has been going on, this administration, this president has been doing painstakingly hard political work to undo another kind of discrimination in the u.s. military. in september of 2011, a full repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" was implemented, eliminating the legal ban on people serving in the military who are openly gaye. well, now they have done more. today in a move that was not really telegraphed in advance, today we learned that by order of the secretary of defense, leon panetta, and upon the unanimous recommendation of the joint chiefs of staff, the obama administration will announce formally tomorrow that the ban on women in combat is over. they had been making some progress in this direction, recently opening up the special operations aviation command to female pilots, and last year opening uabout 14,000 positions in the military that had been previously off limits to women. but this announcement could open up 230,000 new jobs to women

over the course of the next year. the various service branches will make their own plans for how to do it. if there are individual specific jobs that they still want exempt for women, that they want exempt from this new policy, the service chiefs can ask for that. but that will not be the expectation. the priority, of course, is still military readiness and combat effectiveness above all. but they are making this move, starting tomorrow, to make serving equally recognized, equally. to clear the way for women in combat. joining us now is one of the women whose legal case on this issue may have helped push the military to this decision. she is captain zoe bedell. she is one of four plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed four months ago challenging the decision. she is currently in the marine corp. reserve. captain bedell, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> first, let me ask you how you felt today when you heard this news, and did you know it was

omming? >> i had no idea it was coming and i was delighted. our lawyers keep saying cautious optimism. this is going to be implemented, a phased approach. there are a lot of areas that i can drag their feet or screw this up. but tonight i'm excited. >> obviously, the devil is in the details, as you said, and a lot remains to be worked out. but in terms of this broad policy being overturned, being left behind, can you explain how the combat seclusion policy affected you in your time in the military? didn't keep you out of afghanistan, obviously. >> it did not. it kept me from competing for jobs that i would have been well qualified for, potentially. everyone thinks about the infantry jobs that are closed off, and those are sort of the obvious ones. but we had intelligence jobs that were closed as well to female marines. i studied arabic for three years in college and farsi for my fourth year. i couldn't even compete to serve in some of the intelligence jobs that would have seemed like a natural fit. that was at the beginning of my career. then as you get into the military and start deploying,

you say wait a minute, i know the policy says this, but i'm out patrolling or my female friends are running convoys or spending just as much time outside the wire as anyone else. also, all these bases are being attacked. this is a combat zone. we train for that. we mentally prepare ourselves for that. but the policy wasn't recognizing that reality. >> if this had happened earlier, again this is defense department policy, and a lot of review has gone into this. i read a lot of the defense department studies on this today. if they had made this decision ten years ago or eight years ago, where do you think you would be in your career now as opposed to where you are now? >> that's an interesting question. this was a big factor of me getting out. the policy being in place was a policy that led me to leave the military because i consider myself a smart person who has a good future ahead of me, but the military wasn't going to recognize that they were going to evaluate me bayed on my gender, rather than how i performed on my job and how i had done in the past. and i have other options. so why would i put up with that? there was more to it than that,

of course. but i think this would have been a very different situation. >> i know that -- forgive me for mentioning, but have i read that you graduated at the top of your marine corps officer candidate class. >> yes. >> that's neat. that's impressive. tomorrow morning when all the newspapers are printed, the headline is going to be women in combat, and everybody is going to think infantry. everybody is going to be slightly overwhelmed by the blunt implication of that headline. having been through the training that you have been through and the deployments that you have been through, and having made the decision that you made, is there anything else that you want people to understand about what this policy change would mean, that maybe that headline alone does not convey? >> well, there are two elements of it. first of all, as you spent the last ten minutes mentioning, women have been in combat. this isn't such a shock to the system. frankly, women have been doing it. we're going to keep doing it tomorrow morning, regardless what the headlines say. the other thing it means, we're not reserving special spots for women. we're just asking for a chance

to compete to meet the same standards that everyone else is being held to. so this means that we can prove that we belong based on how we perform. we have an equal chance to compete for the jobs. and that means the best person will get selected for the job, not just the man. and i think that's going to make our force stronger overall. >> do you think the men who you have served alongside in the marine corps will feel differently about this than you will today? >> some of them will certainly. a lot of people have served with women, and they've seen women in combat, and they see that they respond exactly as everyone else does, and they've had the same training and they respond to the same drills, and they act the same way. and those men aren't going to be fazed by this. it's probably the men who haven't had the experience who are going to be a little bit more resistant. >> to know that each of the service chiefs get to make their own decision, each of the service branches makes their own decision about how to do this at what pace and what order and with what training, it's going to be interesting to see throughout the military how they

make the decisions. marine corps captain zoe bedell, congratulations. this is something you were fighting for. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. we have lots more coming up, including secretary of state hillary clinton's rather amazing confrontational appearance on capitol hill today. plus virginia's attempt to fix things. and by fix i mean neither neuter nor repair. please stay with us. produced hu.

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effort by republicans in a number of key states to change the rules for electing a president. to change the rules so essentially democrats running for president cannot win. each of these states voted twice for democrat barack obama for president, and each of these states at the state level is under complete republican control. republicans control both chambers of the legislature and the governorship. republicans are talking about using that state level power to change the rules in each of these states for electing the president. they're able to consider doing this because of the success they had in drawing up local legislative districts and congressional district seats after 2010. they drew those maps very strategically so that even if more people vote for democrats, republicans still win a majority of seats, and they're proud of it. look, republicans in late december posted this memo about their redistricting program, which they call redmap. they're bragging about not just

the program, but its effect on the national elections. quote, democratic candidates for the u.s. house won 1.1 million more votes in 2012 than their republican opponents be. the speaker of the house of representatives is a republican, and presides over a 33-seat house republican majority. and that's because of republicans' vision and foresight in drawing the maps. so it's not like republicans are the only ones that have ever done this. but right now republicans are really psyched that they did this. for a very specific reason. they successfully tilted the playing field in their favor for these house races. it really, really paid off. but the way it would really, really pay off is what they would like to do next. they would now like to make that same tilted playing field that they tilted for the house, they would like to make that the same playing field on which we decide the presidency. the national chairman of the republican party reince priebus says he supports the idea of states changing their electoral college rules. the wisconsin governor scott

walker says he is intrigued by this idea. the michigan governor, rick snyder, says he is open to talking about this idea. last night we reported on related news out of the state of virginia. the virginia state senate. virginia republicans waited until this one particular democratic senator, a noted civil rights lawyer named henry marsh, they waited until senator marsh left town on monday for the day to go to the inauguration of president obama. virginia republicans had to wait until he was gone because the state senate is equally divided in virginia, 20 republicans and 20 democrats. but with henry marsh gone for the day, it's no longer an even divide, right? it's 20-19. with that advantage, republicans decided to spring on the senate and spring on the entire state a whole new set of redmaps. a whole new set of gerrymandered maps for the state, drafted to put republicans in charge in virginia effectively permanently. because they did it when henry marsh was away, republicans succeeded in this plan by one vote.

in their stealth attack to change the maps. that one vote was the missing vote of the senator who had gone to the inauguration. that's how they started the week. now virginia republicans are moving on to the next part of it. they're moving on to the electoral college scheme part of it, using the same maps they have gerrymandered for a permanent republican advantage at the state level to also dispute virginia's electoral college votes when it comes to voting for president. today a virginia subcommittee sent a bill to that effect to the full committee, and in that full committee, a 10-5 republican majority appears poised to send the bill to the full senate, which, again, is evenly divided. and where if it is a 20-20 tie, because they vote on a day that everybody is there, then this is the guy who will get to decide the tie, republican lieutenant governor bill bolling. he will get to break the tie in the event of a 20-20 vote. and he, the tiebreaker was the statewide chair of the mitt romney for president campaign. he will get to break the tie.

if the system virginia republicans are pushing now had been in place in 2012, barack obama would still have received 150,000 more votes than mitt romney in 2012 in virginia, but the electoral college vote from virginia would have been four votes for barack obama and nine votes for mitt romney. i wonder why they want to make that change? the action today in virginia is the first of its kind in the nation. what we have been covering is republicans making noises about doing this across the country wherever they can. we've been covering democrats bracing for the prospect of moves like this all across the country, not just in virginia, but in wisconsin and michigan and ohio and pennsylvania. and in pennsylvania, the republicans have a bill in committee. virginia is the first state to actually get on with it and start moving it forward. this is a big story, and it is gathering steam. we'll keep you posted. if you think running a restaurant is hard, try running four. fortunately we've got ink.

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you know, hillary clinton gets attention for whatever she does. whatever she does it anywhere near a camera. but anyone would have gotten attention for a trip to capitol hill like hillary clinton had today. we've got that story coming up next. and then at the end of the show tonight, on monday's show, and actually on monday during the day, during the course of our inauguration coverage, chris matthews and i together made a mistake while discussing fashion. i know, what are the odds? i will correct that, just ahead. stay with us. my $11 jacket.

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and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. if you're still having difficulty breathing, ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. get your first full prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. the serena hotel in kabul, afghanistan, is one of the nicer, higher-end hotels in that war-torn capital. it's got lots of security and western-style amenities, or so i

hear. it is located right near the city center in kabul. but before it was called the serena hotel, it was called the kabul hotel. and in 1979, adolph dubbs, the american ambassador at the time was taken hostage at the hotel. the american ambassador was taken hostage. there was a standoff, and i'm sorry to say that ambassador dubbs was killed. he was shot multiple times and ultimately buried at arlington national cemetery. the united states did not have another ambassador sent to afghanistan for more than 20 years after that. ambassador dubs was killed on valentine's day in 1979, february 1979. later that year, in november 1979, more than 60 americans were taken hostage in tehran. the americans were taken hostage when a mob of militant students stormed the united states embassy in tehran. they fought the marines on guard there for hours. the americans were held hostage after the embassy for 444 days. that was later in 1979. in 1983, at the u.s. embassy in

beirut in lebanon, a car bomb targeting the embassy killed 63 people, including 17 americans. it was a 2,000-pound bomb that just decimated the embassy building in beirut. this is what the embassy looked like before the bombing. this is what it looked like after the bombing the next day. in 1987, in rome, a man detonated a car bomb outside the u.s. embassy in rome. he launch rocket-propelled grenades from a nearby hotel room. in 1988, the american military attache in athens was killed outside his home by a car bomb. he was in his armor plated car about to leave for work when the bomb went off, he was killed, the armored vehicle was destroyed. it was no match for the explosives. 1995, another grenade attack at a u.s. embassy. a man standing in a driveway launched the grenade at the embassy. it did penetrate one of the walls at the moscow embassy. nobody was injured in that attack. scared probably, but not injured. 1998 at the u.s. embassy in

kenya and the u.s. embassy in tanzania, two huge bombs exploded almost simultaneously. four minutes and 450 miles apart. hundreds of people killed, including 12 americans. the person responsible for those attacks was osama bin laden. after the u.s. embassy attacks in kenya and tanzania, the fbi put bin laden on their ten most wanted list. secretary of state madeleine albright escorted home the bodies of 10 of the 12 americans who were killed in those attacks. since 1970, not a year has gone by where there has not been some sort of violent attack against u.s. diplomats and diplomatic facilities around the world. not all of them are deadly, but they happen all the time, year after year after year. and nobody is more aware of that than whoever is the secretary of state at the time. and our secretary of state right now is hillary clinton. who was on capitol hill today to testify about the latest deadly attack on u.s. diplomats. the attack in benghazi. >> benghazi joins a long list of

tragedies for our department, for other agencies, and for america. hostages taken in tehran in 1979, our embassy and marine barracks bombed in beirut in 1983, khobar towers in saudi arabia in 1996. our embassies in east africa in 1998. consulate staff murdered in jetta in 2004. the khost attack and many others. i could give you a long list of attacks averted, the kinds our security specialists are engaged in. i have a lot of confidence in them, but we're going to do what we can to make sure that they get the support within our bureaucracy that they deserve out on the ground protecting our diplomats. >> in the middle of what ended up being a riveting, combative hearing today, as republicans tried to find some political advantage over the obama

administration, over hillary clinton in particular over the attack in benghazi, what ended up looming unexpectedly large over these proceedings was how benghazi is not an unprecedented thing. the state department has had its personnel and its facilities in danger and facing different kinds of attack over and over and over and over again for decades all over the world. and the attempted political acrimony of today's hearing ended up kind of dead-ending today whenever secretary clinton would bring back what congress does not see as a priority does not see the safety that work at the state department and the resources to ensure that safety. and yes, there is a political agenda to be driven, always, always. but in terms of steps necessary to protect people, so far hillary clinton made the case today that congress has been against it, specifically right now, members of the republican-controlled house have been against it. >> we have asked the congress to help us real locate funds.

the senate has given us that authority. we don't yet have it from the house, so that we can get more marine guard. we can get more diplomatic security guards. the senate was good enough to put into the senate version of the sandy supplemental. it did not get into the house side. so we're still looking for the house to act. currently, the house has holds on bilateral security assistance, on other kinds of support for anti-terrorism assistance. so we got to get our act together between the administration and the congress. >> the cia has a black box budget, a secret budget that is at least partly secret, right, opaque, unquestionable. and even if we did know how big the intelligence budget was for the cia and the rest of the intelligence community in this country, rest assured that the only political impact of knowing that number is that someone in congress would insist that we double that number. the united states military has a budget so gargantuan that it

roughly approximates the military budgets of all of our conceivable adversaries and major allies combined. the state department is the only part of the u.s. government that fields high-level personnel doing high security, high tension work in highly sensitive places around the globe alongside the intelligence and the military, except they, the state department employees are the ones who have to do it on a shoestring budget, whose budget and resources are minuscule in comparison and under pressure, under pressure compared to the other ways that americans serve long-terms abroad in dangerous places. the best hope for the state department ever getting its due in washington, ever upscaling its profile and its respect and its resources in washington was probably to put the biggest political star in the modern era of this country who is not a president in charge of that agency, right? the highest profile american woman in politics ever, a woman who transfixes the media and the political class wherever she goes. if the state department was ever going to get what it needed to

protect its people to advance its mission, to assume its rightful place among the american mega agencies who do dangerous work around the globe, having hillary clinton be secretary of state was probably that moment. and today was a tour de force of hillary clinton fighting for that department in the kind of spotlight that only she can attract, fighting for it because her agency still isn't getting it, even after four years of her at the helm. and now she is due to leave. what are the prospects for state getting its due now that john kerry is about to take over? joining us now is andrea mitchell, nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent. and the host andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. thank you for being with me. >> thank you. >> to see hillary clinton talking to anybody gets news coverage. to see her going hand to hand with senator ron johnson of wisconsin is guaranteed to get a lot of attention. but what do you think was the most important take-away from

this testimony today? >> that she is a fighter, that they obviously, the republicans think that she is a likely candidate, because they were trying to muddy her up. i think that both partisans on both sides, the democrats congratulating her and a wink and a nod, we hope we see more of you and this isn't the last we'll see of you, and the republicans saying all the tough things they're saying about benghazi. there are, look, legitimate criticisms about benghazi, and the state department was devastated by the report, the independent action report, the review board that ambassador pickering and admiral mullen reported back. they very explicitly excused her for direct responsibility because all of these reports went below her level. and she had not been aware of the cables. and that's one of the things she was testifying to today. but she got, as you know, ron johnson and rand paul just fiercely criticizing her. and rand paul saying, you know,

if he had been president, that he would have fired her for not knowing about these cables. that was pretty interesting stuff. >> it's a remarkable window into how rand paul thinks of himself, for one. >> it is indeed, isn't it? there is no shortage of egos on this committee. >> well, hillary clinton used to be part of that committee. and that is one of the things that was fascinating today, talking to the members of that committee as somebody who had been there. and talking with them about what congress's responsibility for some of the things that they are trying to score political points on now. given that hillary clinton is one of the most high profile peoples in the world, one of the most high profile secretaries of state ever, how effective is her successor going to be, john kerry, if he is confirmed, at getting the state department adequately funded and getting it the sort of respect that she was demanding today? >> well, he does have a great deal of gravitas with this committee. he chaired the committee up until today or tomorrow when he goes before the committee for his confirmation hearing and will be appearing before the new

chairman, bob menendez, presented by hillary clinton, by the way. so technically that will be her last appearance, and certainly will be a more jeanial one than the one she experienced today, more than five hours before both the senate and the house. and the house was more fierce against her than the senate. but not by a whole lot. but he as the chairman, the former chairman, and she was on armed services actually. so she was a senator, but she didn't know all the ins and outs of their funding. she does now. and she has managed to restore some and hold the line against deeper cuts because of her celebrity and popularity. but kerry is not one to be toyed with either. and he's actually done a number of missions, secret and otherwise for this president. he knows the ropes. it's the job he has wanted forever. so i would not look at him too lightly. i think that he is a very experienced diplomat and has got a lot of chops.

>> when president obama was first inaugurated, one of the things that he talked about in terms of american power around the globe, and he was back stopped in a big way by both hillary clinton and by bob gates, who was initial secretary of defense was this idea that state department needs to grow in esteem, that the military has what it needs effectively in terms of resources, that they don't see themselves as having an enemy in the world on capitol hill, but that the state department needs to grow in order to exert that kind of american power that can only be exerted by people who don't have guns, rather than asking the military to do so much more than it's ever been asked to do. if that is an overall project of the obama administration, have they made any progress toward that yet? and do you think they will continue to make that progress? >> i don't think they've made progress in that regard. i think in both iraq and afghanistan where they were supposed to do take over for the military in iraq and in afghanistan, doing these

civilian projects, these have not worked as they had been imagined. you've got the largest embassy in the world in baghdad, and it is largely populated with contractors. so we've grown the contractors, the private security people, but not the diplomats that are needed. and it's not safe enough for them to go to many of these places, certainly not in afghanistan. so they have not accomplished that civilian takeover of the military functions that have been imagined. >> andrea mitch, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent, host of andrea mitchell reports at 1:00 here on msnbc. >> thanks for the shout out. >> thank you. i really appreciate you being here. >> you bet. all right. all of you looking forward to a self-inflicted worldwide economic meltdown, have i bad news. that's next. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor. now why make a flavored heartburn pill? because this is america. and we don't just make things you want, we make things you didn't even know you wanted.

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graph time. during the george w. bush administration, government spending went up a lot. this is government expenditures per capita, per american person. it combines federal, and state and local governments, right? as you can see, it start there's when george w. bush took office in 2001, and it wasn't like there was just some individual spike in spending that happened right after 9/11. it was a steady, huge increase over time. so per capita government

spending was roughly 12 grand per person when w. came into office. when he left office, it wasn't 12 grand anymore, it was 16 grand in government spending for every man, woman and child in the country. that is a big, steep increase. for comparison sake, if you look at bill clinton, who was in office for the same amount of time, bill clinton also saw a spending rise, but compared to dubbia, he kept spending under control. it really takes off, as you can see, when it goes to bush. since president obama has been in office, he has been better than both of them. he hasn't just held the reins, like clinton did, he has turned it around, he has bent the curve, brought spending down from where it was. at the per capita level, president obama has actually brought spending down since he took office. so remember that. bush, more spending. obama, less spending. that is what is true. >> it's clear the president is not serious about cutting spending. but spending is the problem. >> we've got to stop the

president on this issue. he is an out-of-control train right now on spending. >> the president remains committed to an agenda that calls for ever higher spending, a government that is out of control. >> the president wants to pretend that spending isn't the problem. >> it is a spending problem. and the president wants to increase taxes to continue the spending. >> these democrats are going to spend us right into bankruptcy. they're not serious about getting things under control and stopping the spending. >> the white house is so unserious about cutting spending. >> none of that is true. i mean, to the extent that true means attached to facts. here is spending under bush. here is spending under clinton. here is how spending has dropped under president obama. these guys were not mad about george w. bush's big spike in spending, buzz they have decided to get really mad at the guy who is fixing that, and that anger is weird enough on its own terms. it's weird enough that this republican analysis of this problem is so divorced from reality. but what today's news reminded us is it's not just the analysis

that is weird, it's also the purpose of the analysis, what they are using this cockamamy backwards analysis to justify that is really deeply strange. for decades, raising the debt ceiling was something that congress has been willing to do. since the presidency of fdr, congress has to do. since fdr, congress voted to raise it literally dozens of times. the way we run the country, for generations, you may not like it. it is how we use the debt ceiling, we have raised it 89 times just between 1939 and 2010. the only time we haven't had to raise it in recent years was at the very end of the clinton administration when we started to run a budget surplus, remember that? but other than that, it happens as a matter of course. it is routine, but in 2010, the republicans decided they wouldn't do it anymore. and in the standoff, where they said they wouldn't do it again, even though it was done with

presidents before them, they were not going to do it. the country could default on its debts, that was an economic disaster. check it out. this is job growth, month to month in the year 2011. during that time when it is weirdly suppressed, oh, yeah, it is the fight over the debt ceiling. so when you hear others say oh yeah, it shouldn't be an issue. they're looking back at 2011 and saying that is why. the chamber of commerce fights president obama on everything. they want them to just raise the debt ceiling, because not doing it is a ridiculous, self-inflicted economic wound. well, today, republicans decided that we're not going to do in 2013 what we did in 2011. they decided we wouldn't have artificially depressed job growth and economic pain caused by washington for one period of the year like we did in 2011. they decided today that we're now going to have that all the time. we'll do it all the time.

yeah, today, the house passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling, but they want to have us hit it again in a few months. they raised the debt ceiling for a few months, instead of just do this once for the year or for two years or in some more permanent way to avoid the self-inflicted economic wound they voted today that we should do this always, every few months, because remember, yeah, obama is a big spender. democrats are going along with it, slowly, but this is what republicans want to be the new normal. whether or not you think there is constitutional support for trying to take this decision out of the hands with congress, what just happened today was the reason why people want to take this particular decision out of the hands of this congress. for decades, congress was capable of handling this decision. apparently that is not the case anymore.

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phillips'. . okay, during msnbc's live coverage of the inaugural festivities on monday, i had the best seat in the world, which is sitting next to chris matthews on an inauguration day. it is like being in the one place selling king cakes on mardi gras. there is nowhere that i would have rather been than i was on monday, at the inauguration, getting ready to explain it and sitting with chris matthews. and chris and i, during that discussion, during that coverage had one sort of extended discussion between the two of us about the first lady's dress. >> did you notice that the first lady changed? >> yes. >> see, this is like a wedding

almost. you have to rush away to the car at the end. you know, the whole thing. >> here is me off camera. yes. that was totally wrong. we saw the first lady switch from the coat that she wore over her amazing dress into a cardigan over the same dress, and we thought she changed dresses. she did not change, she did not change, we were wrong. it was by an american designer, tom brown, who makes top hats. but the first lady did not wear a top hat on monday. no, the first lady left the wearing of funny hats on monday to this man. a member of congress, congressman from wisconsin. how do you like me now, wisconsin? this man apparently was heading out to the inauguration platform. he felt a little chilly. and reached into the closet and found this to put on his head for the inauguration. in case you can't quite make out what that is, here is a close-up. a green bay packer's themed

mellow yellow hat. it was during the swearing-in of the president of the united states. you're welcome. also, this man also had a reservation on the funny hat train on inauguration day. the image is a little grainy, from far away. but this is senator bill nelson of florida, who apparently didn't have time to change after going python-hunting this weekend in florida, really, that is what he did. really, senator bill nelson goes on python hat, went there, did that, got the hat and then wore it for the inauguration. this man wore a cowboy hat. that is not the secretary of the interior, ken salazar, who always wears a cowboy hat. that is orrin hatch, who doesn't always wear one, but did on monday. he wore one to the inauguration, thus completely covering the view of litt